


second-hand news

by stoprobbers



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Episode: s02e09 The Gate, Light Angst, Missing Scene, Romance, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 10:37:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16871395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stoprobbers/pseuds/stoprobbers
Summary: She remembers too late that no one is going to pick her up to take her to school and misses the bus. As her mother huffs and gathers her purse, her keys, Nancy flips the corners of the newspaper her father left on the kitchen table, scanning headlines.Nothing.Yet.





	second-hand news

Two days after the Gate closes Mike looks at her over the breakfast table as she shuffles scrambled eggs around her plate. There are dark circles under his eyes like the ones under hers; she's heard his restless sleep as she's lain awake in her own bed. But where her shoulders are tight, scrunched, there is lightness in his posture she hasn’t seen in a year.

"It's okay, Nancy," he says softly when their mother rises to refill Holly's juice and their father leaves the table to fetch his coat. "She closed it. It's over."

She forces the corners of her mouth up into a grin, hopes it reaches her eyes and nods to reassure him. But what he's saying, it’s not strictly true. There's one last loose end to tie up, and no one else knows about it except her, a possibly crazy out-of-work journalist, and the boy that haunts the edges of her dreams.

She wants to talk to him about it so badly, but he hasn't been in school and she's not sure when he will be again. It gives her a weird sense of a déjà vu; spending days with him, just the two of them against the world, culminating in something terrifying and unbelievable, and then having that connection suddenly and completely severed. It feels as cold as the cabin was hot and she layers her sweaters to keep from shivering.

(She studiously does not think of the cabin as the climax of the weekend; that was something else, and she wants to keep it as separate from the horror as best she can, let it gleam crystalline and precious behind her ribs.)

She tried calling his house last night but it just rang. She supposes they haven't had time to replace their phone.

The scrape of her mother's chair on the linoleum breaks her out of her thoughts, sends her eyes flying up just in time to catch Mike's frown before he smoothes it out.

"You alright?" Karen asks as she sits down, eyebrows drawing together with concern. "You look tired, Nance."

"Yeah, uh, just… studying." It doesn't leave her mouth as smoothly as she'd like and she bites back a scowl. "Midterms are coming up. I've been staying up too late studying."

"You've got to remember to get some sleep, sweetie, or the studying won't take. How did your test last week go?"

"Hmm?" Nancy thinks, hard, about what her mother could possibly be talking about.

"The one Jonathan came over to study for." Karen cuts a piece of pancake, raises it her lips. "Did you get an A?"

"Oh!" She'd forgotten all about that lie. Oops. "Um, we haven't gotten it back yet."

"Well, if you're welcome to have Jonathan over to study for midterms if it helps," Karen offers. Mike makes a sound to her left and Nancy returns her attention to her plate instead of looking at him. She wonders if the sound is even warranted; it's not like they've had a chance to talk about what happens next.

The last time she saw him was when he dropped them off at home after the Gate. She had leaned through his open window to kiss his cheek, to thank him, and he had turned his head at the last second to catch the corner of her mouth. They had leaned their foreheads together for the length of a breath and then Mike had called from the walkway and she had watched him drive away.

Something aches in her chest as she musters a smile for her mom. "Thanks."

She remembers too late that no one is going to pick her up to take her to school and misses the bus. As her mother huffs and gathers her purse, her keys, Nancy flips the corners of the newspaper her father left on the kitchen table, scanning headlines.

Nothing.

Yet.

 

 

+++

 

 

The days crawl by until she sees him again.

It's selfish, but she can't help it. She can't carry this weight alone; she doesn't want to, not anymore. She wants to drag him into a quiet corner and let all the fear, the anxiety spill out of her until there's a more equal distribution to her burden.

As if he doesn't have his own burdens to shoulder.

Jonathan comes back to school on Thursday. She's rounding the corner to the library between third period and lunch and nearly runs smack into his chest.

"Oh!" she yelps in surprise. He steadies her by the shoulders.

His eyes are as tired as she can remember ever seeing them but they're warm, like his palms through her sweater, and the corner of his mouth just barely tips up.

"Hey," she manages, eyes wide.

"Hey," he echoes, and she feels the word as breath past her cheek more than she hears it.

Around them students rush towards the cafeteria, the parking lot. Someone coughs out _what a slut_ under their breath and knocks into her shoulder, hard. Carol, maybe, she can't quite tell. She doesn't break eye contact to find out.

His grin becomes a wince.

"Here," she says, grabs his hand and pulls him behind her. He follows easily, through the library doors and back into the stacks, to a far corner not often used, and tosses her notebook onto an empty table.

He places his bookbag on the table beside hers and looks at her, waiting. Expectant. She wishes she hadn't let go of his hand.

"Hey," she says again, because she doesn't know where else to start. He breathes a chuckle out through his nose.

"Hey," he obediently replies.

She takes a step closer to him. "Are you—how are you?"

"Oh, you know," this time his laugh is a little louder and a lot drier. "Tired, stressed, scared. Will's okay, actually, better than last year, but my mom… she's having a hard time."

"Yeah." Nancy looks down because it doesn't feel right to hold eye contact and think about kissing him when he's talking about this. "I'm sorry."

"Me too." He sighs, but shuffles even closer. His hand on her cheek tips her face back up to his. "But, I feel a little better now, at least."

For a moment they just stare at each other. She sees his shoulders rise and fall, a breath in to steel himself like at the door of the guest room, and decides it's her turn to make a declarative statement.

She rises up on her toes before he can lean down and presses her mouth to his.

She has to hang onto his shoulders to keep from losing her balance, at least until he drags her closer by the waist. As her arms wrap around his neck and his mouth slants over her she thinks, dimly, that the giddy thrill unwinding in the pit of her stomach is the most normal teenage thing she's felt in a week, longer, perhaps even a year.

When they separate he rests his forehead on hers and she keeps her eyes closed, feeling him catch his breath against her cheek.

"Okay." She's not sure what he's confirming, but that's what it sounds like, a confirmation. He loosens his grip so she can drop back down onto her heels and takes a careful step back from her. His hand comes up to his mouth like he's trying to wipe away his smile as he glances around them. "Eating lunch in the library now?"

She doesn't bother to try to wipe her grin away.

"Not really but, well," she shrugs, "It's not like I'm sitting at Steve's table anymore."

"We could go to my car?" 

"I need to check, um, actually…"

She's not sure why this should be embarrassing to admit, especially to Jonathan, but the words stick in her throat. She steps carefully around him to the shelves of periodicals, glancing over them before pulling out that day's copy of the Indianapolis Star and the Chicago Tribune.

"Most of them aren't here but, um, there's some and I'm just… checking."

Now that he's here in front of her it's hard to get the words out around the hammering in her chest. She doesn't look at him as she stars to flip through the first paper. She's quick, an efficient scan of headlines in the front-page section, as if speed will help protect her.

She makes quick work of the papers and bites her lip when there's nothing. Stares down at the newsprint and lets the words blur through her tears, but doesn't let them fall. She's not sure why she feels like she's about to cry, but something about him standing next to her makes her feel like she can if she needs to.

Jonathan takes her hand.

"It'll take a few days for the tapes to get through the mail," he reminds her. "And then they have to investigate. It could take a while."

"What if it didn't work?" she whispers. "What if we did all of that for nothing?"

"Not for nothing. It'll work." His voice is soft but firm. It pulls her gaze from the papers, and the look on his face is hard and determined.

"You don't know that."

"I don't know anything," he shrugs, "but I have faith."

Her smile is watery, but solid. He grins back, achingly soft.

"Hey," he squeezes her hand, "The Hawkins Library has a lot more papers, from everywhere. Wanna skip fourth period?"

 

 

+++

 

 

Mike comes to sit on her bed after dinner on a Saturday night as she's staring at physics problem sets. She used to go to the movies on Saturday nights but not anymore. Her mother didn't ask, and she was glad for it.

He waits for her to look up, clears his throat when she doesn't react. She can't quite hold back a sigh.

"Yes?" she asks and winces; it comes out sharper than intended.

"Can I ask you a question?"

His tone is at once hesitant and leading. Nancy sets aside her homework and draws her knees up to her chin, peering at him.

"Sure."

"Do you, um," he looks down at his hands, "do you remember how to get to Hopper's cabin?"

She frowns; it takes a moment to realize what he's after. Her frown deepens.

"Mike."

"What?"

"You know it's not safe." 

"Say who? Plus, I can be sneaky! No one will even know where I'm going."

Nancy purses her lips. Mike glares at her before looking away again. She wants to give him a speech about how this is to protect Eleven, how keeping her locked up and out of sight means the bad men can't find them, even as they're preoccupied with their own dead, their own wounded, their own cover-up. But there's a fire in his brown eyes that she knows well enough to know he's not going to let this go.

"No, I don't, not really," she admits.

She can remember a lot of things about the cabin; the smell of dust and old wood, the oppressive heat of a fire and half a dozen space heaters despite suspiciously shattered windows, the feel of sweat trickling down her spine and Jonathan's damp hair against her cheek. The death grip of his hand in hers, and the screams of his younger brother, his mother.

But how they got there is a blur of darkness and trees and heavy, terrified breaths and Mrs. Byers' murmurs in the backseat, comforts and assurances and promises they only barely managed to keep.

Mike deflates.

"I wasn't really paying attention," it comes out an apology. "Hopper told Jonathan where to go, not me. I didn't hear it and Jonathan didn't say, he just drove until we were there. It was pretty far."

"Do you think Jonathan would tell me?"

"I don't know," she answers because she doesn't. "I'm not sure he even remembers."

That's a lie. She's quite sure he remembers every single detail, no matter how small, of that night. What she really means is _I'm not sure if I want to ask him. I'm not sure if he's ready to remember._

"Can you ask him? He'll tell you."

It's as close as either of them has gotten to acknowledging the thing growing between her and Jonathan. She doesn't answer right away, considers her younger brother closely, eyes searching his face. He looks older than his 13 years, more tired than any boy should.

He's also not wrong. They may have only started the kissing part of this thing between them a couple weeks ago, but she's known for a long time that Jonathan would do anything for her. The feeling is mutual.

She's so deep in her thoughts she misses the thumps on the roof outside her window, but Mike doesn't. She follows his gaze just in time to see Jonathan's head pop up in her window. He smiles at the sight of her but his eyes widen at Mike sitting on her bed and he abruptly drops down out of sight again.

Mike sighs loudly, rolls his eyes at her, and just like that he's his age again, a pre-teen with an annoying older sister who grosses him out by sneaking boys into her bedroom. She can't stifle the laugh this time, giggles at both of them through her fingers as she rises from the bed.

"Oh just get in here," she tells Jonathan, opening the window. "He won't say anything."

"I won't as long as you promise to _keep it down_ ," Mike whines, as Jonathan wrestles his way through the window. His ears are red, but not from cold.

She pushes Mike off the bedspread, towards her door, which is wide open and she's gotta fix that _now_ before her mom walks by on her way to bed. Keeps pushing until his skinny body is filling the frame as best it can.

"Ask him," Mike murmurs to her, "please."

She nods once and heaves him all the way out, shutting it carefully and locking it behind him.

Jonathan stands in the middle of her bedroom, shutting the window, shedding his coat, toeing off his shoes. By his feet are his beat up blue bag and a stack of newspapers.

"I grabbed the weekend editions of the Post and the Times. They have bigger U.S. news sections, I thought maybe that's where our story would end up—"

The way her heart flips in her chest feels dangerously like love.

He keeps talking, explaining himself like he has something to justify, until she cuts him off with her mouth, pulls him towards her bed, newspapers forgotten for hours.

 

 

+++

 

 

Nancy's gotten used to nightmare dimensions and telekinetic children but she's not prepared for how difficult Bob Newby's funeral is. 

Just like the year before, her mother zips up her black dress, smoothes back her hair, rests her hands on her shoulders.

"It's good of you to be there for Jonathan like this," Karen says, her fingertip dangerously close to the purple spot the boy in question left on her neck two nights ago, which Nancy spent half an hour carefully covering over with concealer. "You two have been spending a lot of time together lately."

"Yeah," Nancy replies softly, looking down at her hands. Briefly, wildly, she wonders if she should have put on nail polish. "We… yeah."

Her mother is quiet until she looks up and meets her eyes in the mirror, then gives her a small nod.

"He's still welcome to come over to study, Nancy. For dinner, too." A small grin spreads across her mother's lips. "But no more closing the bedroom door."

They pile into the family station wagon, Mike's tie carefully centered in his collared shirt. He looks pale and his eyes are far away. In the backseat she reaches over Holly's car seat to take his hand, hold it between her own, give it a squeeze. Unshed tears shine in his eyes when he looks back at her and wills his mouth into the weakest of smiles.

She stands next to Jonathan who, along with his mother, flanks Will near the head of the coffin. His shoulders are rigid and she wants to reach out to take his hand but they're deep in his coat pockets; his eyes flit between his mother and his brother and the walnut coffin before them.

Joyce cries softly, tears dripping down her cheeks almost absently. To her right, Hopper stands guard and, from time to time, places a gentle hand on her shoulder.

Will doesn't cry; he stares at the ground. His shoulders are hunched, his posture resigned. Guilty, even. Nancy wonders what happened to Bob. She knows he died at the lab, knows because Joyce was wailing and Mike was shouting as they piled into the backseat of Jonathan's car, but that is all she knows.

Not for the first time she thinks about asking Mike. She wonders if Jonathan has asked his mother or if she told him without prompting.

After the service is over and the coffin is lowered into the ground her mother places a hand on her back and pushes her towards the Byers, murmuring, "Go ahead" in her ear. She squeezes her lips together once, grateful, and follows.

It's _awkward_. No one speaks much, not in the car, and not when they get home. Joyce shuffles to her room to change out of funeral clothes and Will goes to do the same. Jonathan just tosses his coat onto a chair. Nancy stands in the center of the living room and wishes she had thought about bringing a change of clothes. She feels uncomfortable in her tights and formal dress, but no one seems to notice.

Jonathan makes soup for lunch and then gets into an argument with Mrs. Byers about eating it. Nancy slips out of the kitchen and back to the living room, their voices following her down the hall, a cycle of _I'm not hungry, Jonathan,_ and _Come on, mom, you_ have _to eat. Please, just try, for me?_

Will is sitting on the living room floor, staring blankly at the Atari start screen on the television. She sinks onto the couch behind him, doesn't say a word.

"Sorry," Will says after a moment, and even his soft voice is startling in the quiet. She jumps a little.

"For what?"

"For all this. It's been… it's been a little weird."

 _You should have seen it after your funeral_ , she wants to reply. _Jonathan stole your dad's gun and we went monster hunting_.

That doesn't exactly sound like a comfort, though, so she keeps it to herself.

"It's okay," she says instead. "Funerals are always weird."

"Yeah," Will mumbles. He's still for a moment and it reminds her powerfully of Jonathan, the way he simply stops moving when he's not sure of what to do next. Then he turns and offers something to her. It takes a second for her to realize it's an Atari controller. "Wanna play?"

He kicks her ass, which isn't surprising; it's the same on the rare occasions she plays with Mike. She doesn't mind losing, though, since it seems to make Will laugh, to lift his spirits and his shoulders a bit.

She's midway through losing her third game in a row when there's the sound of a slamming door and stomping feet down the hallway and then Jonathan drops down on the sofa next to her with a loud huff.

She can't look at him and the game at the same time but she's got no hope of winning and she can _feel_ the tension radiating from him, so she looks away from the screen.

His jaw is clenched so hard the throbbing knob of muscle is visible and he is glaring out into space, arms crossed tight against his chest. A moment later the losing music plays and she carefully places the controller onto the coffee table.

"Jonathan," she starts, but he doesn't let her finish. Instead pulls her tight into his arms and buries his face in her neck.

His mouth moves against her skin and she thinks of the cabin, the desperate clutch of his fingers as he cried into her shoulder.

"Thank you," he whispers as she struggles to get her arms around him. His grip tightens further but she manages to free one arm and stroke his hair. "For coming."

"Of course," she replies, just as soft. "Are you okay?"

He shrugs with one shoulder, pulls her closer, halfway onto his lap. She sets her lips against the side of his head, not quite a kiss, and breathes him in.

"You need to eat, too," she reminds him and feels his nod, but his grip doesn't loosen so she stays where she is and counts the beats of his heart.

Eventually it is Will who rises, ladles the soup into bowls, calls them into the kitchen. Fetches his mother and sits her down at the table. Her eyes are red-rimmed but clear, and she squeezes her oldest son's hand as he sits down next to her.

Their meal is quiet but some of the tension has cleared, and Jonathan holds her hand under the table.

He pulls her into his room after, hits play on his cassette player and lays her on his bed and kisses her until she sees stars. His mouth trails fire over her skin, pressing thanks into her flesh.

After, they curl together under his covers wearing haphazard pajamas in the autumn sunset and doze until he seems to remember something. He reaches down beside his bed and retrieves a rolled-up newspaper with a sheepish grin.

She takes the front page, he takes the U.S. news section. When they're done searching for Barb's name, he lays his head in her lap and she props herself up against both his pillow to read the obituaries aloud until her father comes to take her home.

 

 

+++

 

 

 

In what may or may not be an attempt to act like normal teenagers, they drive out to Lover's Lake to park among the bushes and climb into the backseat, but for once she can't keep her heart in it. The feeling of Jonathan's lips against hers still sends sparks shooting down her spine, the pads of his fingers tracing patterns on her ribcage after he pulls her shirt off still send fire licking into her belly, but every time the feeling starts to overwhelm, her mind drifts away.

Drifts to a steaming backyard pool, a turquoise station wagon, a pale hand with a bloody bandage, warm indoor lights glinting off glasses and red hair. Each time she drifts she catches herself, pulls her back to the present, presses herself harder against Jonathan's lap against his arousal, kisses him deeper, tries to forget.

But it doesn't work, and he's definitely noticed.

"Nance," Jonathan says, stopping her hands by the wrists as they slide under his sweater, tipping his head back to put some space between them. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," she tries to play it off, leans in to kiss him again. He turns his head and she gets his cheek instead. Sits back with an offended expression only for him to raise his eyebrow at it.

"Alright, let me rephrase: Nance, you're not okay. What's wrong?"

She huffs. In these moments the contrast between him and Steve could not be clearer and she finds herself reluctantly understanding her ex's approach. Jonathan doesn't respond to her irritation, though, just passes her sweater back to her and waits for her to start talking. And as she pulls it over her head, she does.

"It's been more almost three weeks," she sighs, not moving off his thighs but leaning back so she's sitting against the back of the front seat. "Why hasn’t anyone reported on the tape?"

"I don't know," he admits, looking down briefly. "I don't."

"What if they're not going to, what if they never do?" Nausea rolls over her as she voices her hidden fears. "I mean, whoever these people are, they have an entire branch of government looking out for them, helping them keep secrets. What if they got to all these reporters too? Threatened their families, their lives? We didn't even think about it…"

He frowns at her. "I don't know that they could do _that_. I mean, isn't that against the first amendment? Freedom of the press and all?"

"I don’t think anyone at that lab really cares about the Constitution, do you?"

He takes both her hands and laces their fingers together. Rests them on his lap between them, but doesn't answer her question. She wasn't really asking for an answer, anyway.

"I'm tired of being scared all the time," she admits softly. "I can't live like this, I don't _want_ to live like this. I want it to be done with. I want it to be over."

"I know." He raises one of her hands to his mouth and brushes a kiss over the knuckles. "I want it for you, too. I just… I don't know what to do now. We could go back out to Murray's? Ask him what we should do next? Make him reach out to all those reporters again?"

None of those are really options, she knows that, but watching him cast about for solutions in a sea of bad ideas makes her heart feel big, sends a rush of emotion and desire through her. She uses their entwined hands to pull him forward until she can kiss him again.

 _Thank you_ , she wants to whisper against his lips, but her mouth is kind of busy with his tongue at the moment so she settles for thinking it as hard as she can at him. _I think I love you_.

He sucks in a breath through his nose, hauling her back properly onto his lap and lifting his hips against hers and for a second she wonders if she did say it aloud after all, or if he somehow heard her. But this time her mind doesn't drift away with those questions; instead she breathes in his scent and his sweat, pulls her sweater off and then his, grinds down against his lap and lets the heat inside her overwhelm her senses.

His car windows fog and she lets her mind do the same thing until everything is her, and him, and them, and there's nowhere left for the fear to go except away for the night.

 

+++

 

 

Maybe all the universe needed was a confession, she'll think later.

She's hopping around in her bedroom on one foot, blearily pulling on her jeans Monday morning, when she hears the doorbell. She doesn't give it a thought - it's way too early to leave for school – until her mom yells up the stairs.

"Nancy, honey, are you dressed? Jonathan's here, he said he has something for you, I think it's for a test--"

Nancy's brow furrows. They don't have a test today.

"Yeah, mom, I'm decent!" she calls back but she can hear him running up the stairs already, footsteps loud and rushed and uncharacteristically inconsiderate to the rest of the waking house. Her heart jumps into her throat as he throws her door open.

"Look," he says and thrusts a page of the Chicago Sun-Times out at her. His hand is shaking.

She takes it, scanning headlines as her mind spins. She's so distracted by the pounding of her heart that she almost misses it – it's small, just a few paragraphs, and tucked into a corner, but it's there.

_MISSING INDIANA TEEN DEAD, GOV. OFFICIAL CONFIRMS ON ANONYMOUS TAPE_

It knocks the wind out of her.

Distantly she's reminded of a little girl floating in a kiddie pool of slapdash saltwater muttering "Gone, gone," and the same feeling, like all the air has been sucked out of the room and gravity has been canceled and she is unmoored, floating in an ocean of grief and horror. The corners of her vision go blurry, then fuzzy, and then start to kaleidoscope with odd patterns.

She loses awareness of the outside world until Jonathan's hand clasps her upper arm firmly and his voice breaks through the static in her mind and her blood rushing in her ears, instructing her, "Breathe, Nance. Breathe."

She sucks in a breath so quickly it sends her dizzy and her knees almost collapse out from under her, but Jonathan's there to catch her, guide her to sit on the end of the bed. Her fingers are numb but she's still holding the paper and she's not even aware that she's started crying until the first teardrops darken the thin newsprint. _Oh,_ she acknowledges with mild surprise right before she reconnects to her body in a rush and the article falls from her grip, and then she is sobbing.

Jonathan holds her close as she claws at his shoulders, trying to climb onto him, into him, away from this tsunami of emotions that threatens to rip her away from him and drown her. He's whispering and murmuring to her, nonsense sounds to soothe and calm her, but it won't penetrate. Her chest heaves and her ribs ache and she shudders against him, broken.

Distantly she can hear the pounding of more footsteps up the stairs, panicked, and the sound of her mother's frantic voice and Jonathan's softer answers. She can't lift her head from the crook of his neck but she feels the mattress dip as her mother sits on her other side and wraps her arms around her and begins to coo as well.

After a moment the bed dips again, not as much, and another skinnier body presses against her back. Mike doesn't speak, just rests his head on her shoulder. Cocooned in their embraces, Nancy finally gives herself over, lets the wave take her, sweep her away in their arms.

 

 

+++

 

 

When Nancy returns to school the next day the hallways are buzzing with whispers once more, cicadas in summertime trees. She can feel eyes on her as she walks through the halls, but she doesn't meet the curious gazes. Instead she sticks close to Jonathan's side and he lets her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and walking silent and strong next to her. He meets the stares for her, and protects her space.

She saw the television news trucks on the drive in, parked outside the police station and in the senior parking lot outside Hawkins High. She checks for reporters and cameras outside her class windows, glancing out of the corner of her eye.

On the surface she appears relatively normal, subdued but present in her life, but on the inside she's hollow and drained. She had expected to feel triumphant and strong, like an avenging angel, when this happened but instead she feels exhausted to the marrow of her bones.

After English, Jonathan walks her to her locker and she's about to ask him if he can take her somewhere else, maybe let her nap in his car, when a shadow falls over her.

There's still faint bruising around Steve's eye and on his cheek, but his nose is straight and the swelling has gone down enough for his eyes to be big and brown once more. They haven't said much to each other in the past weeks beyond awkward _hellos_ and _how are yous_ in the hallway.

"Hey," he says quietly, glancing around to see how many people are watching. Nancy can feel their looks; it's more than a few. Behind her Jonathan steps a tiny bit closer and rests a hand on her hip in the space between her and the lockers. "I saw."

The tiny article in the Chicago Sun-Times morphed into a front-page exposé in the Hawkins Post overnight. Everyone has seen. She just nods. 

"You did it, Nance," Steve says firmly and lays a hand on her shoulder. "You did it."

Her smile is watery, but she manages; the lump in her throat burns. He smiles back, equally faint, and squeezes her shoulder twice, then steps back. She reaches out and catches his hand before he turns.

"Her funeral is Saturday," she says. Mrs. Holland had told her over the phone yesterday, through hiccupping tears, and Nancy had cried with her on the line until they were both spent and all she could do was affirm she would be there, she'd never miss it, and then take another nap under a heavy blanket of grief when they hung up. "You should come."

Steve nods but doesn't speak and moves to leave again but she tightens her grip, pulls him back towards her. "Please, Steve. I want you to come."

He smiles again, even fainter, and nods again. "Okay, Nance. I'll be there."

The bell rings and she lets him go, watches him disappear into the crowd of students in the hallway. A dozen different kinds of aches war in her chest. Jonathan squeezes her hip.

"You okay?" he asks quietly, lips brushing against her ear. She turns to face him, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, and the aches begin to clear, something warm peeking through her ribs for the first time in months and months.

"Yeah," she nods. "Yeah, I am."

She suddenly wants to hug him, for reasons she can't quite articulate, and there's nothing stopping her anymore so she does, squeezing him hard around the waist for a second as the warning bell echoes through the hall. When she lets him go he's smiling and as they walk to their next class her steps finally feel lighter.

 

 

+++

 

 

She hates this dress. All black dresses, maybe.

But she smoothes it over her thighs anyway, over the thick black tights and demurely heeled shoes that are good for walking in grass, makes sure it lays perfectly and has no wrinkles. She puts on her ballet shoe necklace and lets her hair hang in perfect waves, just barely brushing her shoulders. She puts delicate diamond studs in her ears and concealer under her eyes, and just a hint of gloss on her lips.

She looks at the photo strips of her and Barb still tucked into the ribbons on her pin board, so happy, so free. Dressed like clowns and bunnies on Halloween, laughing with sunglasses on in the photobooth at the county fair two summers ago.

The deepest part of her chest still aches every day, a dull throb she's not sure will ever go away but that she's learning to tolerate. She still looks at those pictures every night as words bubble up inside her and threaten to spill forth – the details of her day, her growing and changing feelings for Jonathan, her upcoming chemistry test, or sometimes just how much she _misses_ her. More than she used to she speaks them aloud now, determined to make sure her best friend knows everything about her life whether or not she is sure Barb can hear her.

The ache is stronger today but she breathes against it until the tentacles of grief loosen their grip on her heart. Through her bedroom window a ray of sunlight bursts through fluffy white clouds and falls directly across the photos like a spotlight.

She feels like that nowadays, sun breaking through clouds. She can feel the deepest wounds she's carried inside her stitching themselves together, scabbing and healing over. It's not just a feeling of becoming whole again; she's starting to feel like something more.

There's a tap at her bedroom door before it opens slowly. Standing on the threshold in his now-standard black suit and no tie, Jonathan gives her a small smile. She returns it, bigger and brighter, and delights in watching it stretch to match hers.

He stretches in lots of ways to match her, and she stretches in return. She can feel them growing together, and it feels like comfort and something else too.

"Ready?" he asks, holding out her coat, open for her. She slides her arms into the sleeves, lets him adjust it on her shoulders, and takes his hand, holding it tight.

"Ready."

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm surprised no one has tackled how the story of Barb's death breaks, how the tapes work, how long it might take and how heavy it might weigh on Nancy. So I attempted to. 
> 
> Title from Fleetwood Mac's "Second Hand News," though that song truly has nothing, thematically, to do with this story.


End file.
